What is trisquel without libreboot?

Most users do not change boot firmware of their computers. Trisquel is
better for their freedom and privacy than Ubuntu.

TPM is just mostly useless, it has no security issues. There are other
worse components, like Management Engine that on all recent Intel
chipsets (optional since i965, required after GM45) uses nonfree signed
software stored in boot firmware chip, that provides AMT on (officially only)
some chipsets.

UEFI makes boot firmware more complex, it has the same freedom issues as
BIOS or other similar software. Secure Boot makes booting free systems
harder (requiring changing some settings), restricted boot is not done
on x86.

Libreboot port needs coreboot support for a device without blobs. No
post-GM45 Intel system will be supported, no AMD system will be
supported with graphics unless someone replaces some blobs. See
coreboot documentation for how to port it to other devices, it needs
much experience (and is a possible way of getting such experience if you
choose an appropriate target system).

I wouldn't recommend using Libreboot- unless you know what you're doing, bricking is certainly possible. If your computer isn't a Thinkpad or a Macbook, 'tis a no-go, sadly.

However, ThinkPenguin.com has some great free software-friendly computers (FSF endorses ThinkPenguin, anyway) and can come installed with Trisquel, so next time you get a PC, make it a penguin and escape proprietary software.

So you described 3 cases:
1) Ubuntu without libreboot
2) Trisquel without libreboot
3) Trisquel with libreboot

And your goal is to resist surveillance.

Using 2 instead of 1 will raise the difficulty to get in your computer, and that raise in difficulty might be enough or not, depending on your situation.

You should try to think like the other side, you have a budget, and you have some risks.

If the risk and money spent isn't worth it, then my guess is that they don't attempt something.

So here you raise the other side's risks by using 2.

I don't have enough knowledge of what runs on the ME, but if it's standard enough between computers, then I guess that using it is very risky (what if someone finds it out and find out how getting in it works?).

So to find out if it's standard, people would need to externally dump the BIOS flash, extract the ME partition from it(easy), then extract the partitions that are inside the ME, and somehow diff them.

Some partitions are compressed, and I'm unsure of the status of the attempts to uncompressed them.

Denis.

Compiling is the general process of turning a human readable source code into a machine readable binary. This is also called building.

Thank you for the answers.

I should mention, I am not very technically knowledgeable on this. I do not know if that will be held against me on this forum. But I have tried to read and grasp about the free hardware matter. I came to the conclusion that Stallman is right.

I watched a vidoe showing Applebaum talking about the tpm. His perception was, that no user knows what the tpm does. It might spy on you. If it does not, it may be possible remotely to get it to spy on you. No one can audit the software and tell. That coming from Applebaum tells me, that tpm is a security and privacy matter. I do not recall, if he had the same reservations about eufi. But I think he did. Eufi being part of the bio, Stallman says, it is required to be free software. About management engine, I did not know about that. It is another obstacle in getting a free software computer?

According to Stallman it matters that the bio is free software. I cannot see anything gained in buying a thinkpenguin notebook with a non free bio, compared to buying any other non free bio notebook. Around here you believe that a non free bio trisquel computer gives a significant improvement on security compared to ubuntu, mint? If thinkpeguin had a libreboot trisquel notebook for sale, and the price tag should happen to be 2 or 3 times the price of a comparable non free bio notebook, I would not get the libreboot notebook. I find it unacceptable that I cannot get a free software notebook that has current specs and a price about a non free option.

About option libreboot and ubuntu. That is not a relevant combination to me. If I had a libreboot computer, I would only install a free software system endorsed by Stallman.
My argument is, if I do not have a libreboot computer then do I gain anything significant by installing trisquel?

The libreboot is 198gbp. I think it recently got more expensive. For that you get a refurbished computer. I want a touchpad, which it does not have. And the seller wrote me, I cannot get a hdd bigger than 320gb. Then I am not going to buy it.

If I could get one for about 100usd, the price would make the difference, and I would probably get one. In Europe you do not get a used one for 100usd. Tryharddiehard I congratulate you on getting a free software computer. I have considered buying a thinkpad x60 mainboard and build it into a notebook, that has a touchpad, but I do not know if it can be done?

Cool.
Maybe the best we can do here if someone who feels nice is do an 'idiots how too' in detail on a special page. Listing a few site to encourage movement towards 'Libreboot'. I know I am keen to have a go but I do not feel confident or know my Lenovo T61 will do it.
Maybe I think my T60 will.
But I am encouraged by some success here which is very positive input for me.